Knowledge Management Strategy on Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding (CPPB)

• Initiative Summary
• Results

In regions as diverse as Latin America, Central Asia, Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East, many countries still struggle to address the root causes of conflict. In addition, stages of conflict vary greatly between countries. Of the 19 JP countries of the MDG-F Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding (CPPB) window, few experienced high levels of violent conflict, but conflict existed nonetheless in socio-economic form. Social and economic inequalities and lack of good governance and rule of law still represent the greatest challenges to transitioning to long-lasting peace, enabling democratic participation in decision-making processes, building sustainable development, and achieving the MDGs. Despite some progress to date on achieving the MDGs, vulnerable people are disproportionally excluded from these benefits (source: MDG Report 2011).

The 19 JPs in the CPPB window aimed to address this gap by establishing effective synergies between UN agencies in each country and their national counterparts. The work carried out in these countries addressed conflict both as a cause and symptom of poverty and hunger. This was meant to complement overall efforts on the MDGs at country level, in particular on eradicating extreme poverty and promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment: the CPPB window was ranked first of the Fund’s windows in terms of mainstreaming a gender dimension in its activities (source: UN Women). The CPPB JPs assisted people in resuming their livelihoods after a period of conflict and becoming self-reliant, supporting them in returning to their homes, rebuilding local infrastructure and regaining a sense of normalcy. Activities were aimed at generating livelihoods and economic opportunities with a special focus on youth, women’s groups, IDPs, returnees and ethnic minorities. Furthermore, MDG-F JPs worked on reducing the risk of relapse to violent conflict by supporting reconciliation, dialogue and social cohesion; establishing systems for citizen security; and strengthening the justice and security sector.

The objective of the CPPB KM plan was to enhance JP planning and implementation and contribute more widely to knowledge-sharing about effective CPPB programming. To this end, the MDG-F partnered with UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR), establishing synergies with UNDP Country Offices, Regional Service Centers and teams in BCPR headquarters. The KM plan was aimed at fostering an enabling environment for knowledge creation, in particular by creating a community of practice, enhancing familiarity with KM tools and methodologies, and supporting the institutionalization of lessons learned beyond the closure of the Fund.

Experiences exchange initiatives: 

• Teamworks Community of Practice:  a Community of Practice was established and facilitated a CPPB Teamworks space and 19 JPs Teamworks spaces as a forum  for knowledge sharing and programme monitoring; achieved 100% coverage training for trainers on Teamworks.
  » mdgf.unteamworks.org/node/16955

• Workshops: Organized and facilitated a Global Workshop (Panama) gathering both national and international partners; organized and facilitated a Regional Workshop on Citizen Security aimed at gathering knowledge to develop guidelines for the design, implementation and monitoring of public policies on Citizen Security. Workshop reports were produced.

• Web dialogues: In partnership with UN Women, ensured enhancement and strengthening of a gender dimension in the implementation of the Joint Programme (in particular, through the participation of the JPs to the UN Women ‘MDG-F Documentation Initiative’; and the UN Women-led Web-dialogues[1]). This resulted in having the CPPB JPs placing second (after the Gender thematic Window JPs) in the rank of best performing JPs vis-à-vis gender mainstreaming (source: UN Women[2])

Lessons learned:

• Organized and facilitated three Joint Peer Review Meetings (Mexico, Senegal, Slovakia) for identification of lessons learned, sharing of experiences and practices and capacity building.

• Digest of Experiences and Lessons Learned: launched a Call for Proposal for CPPB Knowledge Sharing Initiatives which resulted in supporting five JPs (Bolivia, Costa Rica, Lebanon, South Serbia, fYR of Macedonia) in the scale up of practices and the development of tools and/or strategies (see Section B). The MDG-F's CPPB JP in North Kivu was also selected for this initiative. Despite the impossibility of implementing the proposal presented, the lessons learned were used to inform a new project proposal at country level on reintegration of victims of SGBV.

• Case Study: Knowledge Expansion Guatemala.

Knowledge Products:

• Paper ¨Joint Programming for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding¨: The main objective of this paper was to present a comprehensive compilation of lessons learnt and good practices from the MDG-F Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Joint Programmes, and to provide a ‘how to guide’ on joint programming for conflict prevention and peacebuilding. It also aimed to strengthen capacity and inform ongoing and future designing and planning of joint programmes.